News and developments on Freedom of Information in the UK. This blog is run by the Campaign for Freedom of Information. It was established in May 2003 by Steve Wood, who ran it until the end of February 2007 when he took up the post of Assistant Commissioner at the Information Commissioner's Office.

Thursday, July 10, 2003

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION and George Orwell

The historian Timothy Garton Ash talks about the keeping back of Orwell's list and the current Iraq dossier affair in terms of the general issue of freedom of information. The Freedom of Information Act will come into effect in the area of historical records in 2005 and people will be able to appeal to the information commissioner if the government refuses to give up particular pieces of information. However, the whole of Britain's secret state has a blanket exemption from releasing their records for public scrutiny and the FOI Act cannot do anything to touch this.